Tags: art

Compelled by alternative functions, artist Bill Jenkins’ practice reconstitutes utilitarian objects and places. In the exhibition Image/Conduit, currently on view at the Freshkills Park Studio + Gallery, he investigates this curiosity through the topography of Freshkills Park.

The exhibition features video work titled Scans, investigating the relationship between decades of compressed garbage placed at Fresh Kills with the picturesque grassy hills that compose the landscape of Freshkills Park.

Work by several artists will be installed and realized at Freshkills Park this summer as part of the art-research project Field R/D. This phase of the expansive and collaborative project is made possible thanks to a Shelley and Donald Rubin Foundation Art and Social Justice Initiative grant award.

What better way to explore Freshkills Park than with an artist-led drawing workshop in a shipping container?

Freshkills Park is currently home to Fastnet, a shipping container converted into a studio and project space. The container was purchased by artist James Powers in 2015.

This summer, Freshkills Park is offering creative workshops about plants at the Greenbelt Nature Center. Using art as a platform, these workshops will engage participants in exploring the importance of native plants, as well as the relationships between native and invasive plants, in relation to the Freshkills Park project.

This spring, students from Gaynor McCown Expeditionary Learning School are visiting Freshkills Park for outdoor observational drawing workshops in Fastnet, a shipping container converted into a studio and project space. Artist James Powers purchased Fastnet in the fall of 2015. Here he reflects on “the thrill of drawing outside” and how he learned to think of the landscape “as an extension of the studio.” The inaugural program was designed and executed in collaboration with artist Rita Leduc.

This spring, Freshkills Park will be home to a shipping container converted into a studio and project space. The container, known as Fastnet, will be fitted with desks and chairs to accommodate outdoor observational drawing workshops, primarily for high school students.

This month, artists Stefani Bardin and Assaf Tamir are offering workshops as part of their exhibition, the Fantastic Voyage. The immersive installation at the Freshkills Park Studio + Gallery explores the role of food production in our personal health and the health of the environment.

Earlier this month, Freshkills Park returned to the annual NADA (New Art Dealers Alliance) New York Art Fair as a cultural partner alongside over 100 other exhibitors hailing from 19 countries. The fair, held March 8-11, brought together emerging galleries, artists, and projects at Skylight Clarkson Square in West SoHo.

“The Fantastic Voyage”
On view January 21 – June 8, 2018
2240 Richmond Avenue, Staten Island, NY

Stefani Bardin and Assaf Tamir’s “The Fantastic Voyage” is an immersive installation exploring the role of food production in our personal health and the health of the environment.

In November of 2017, Freshkills Park celebrated the groundbreaking at North Park. The event signaled the start of construction on the 21-acre project, which will be the first section inside the Fresh Kills Landfill boundaries to become public parkland. This milestone was possible thanks in part to the growing community that is engaging with the project and participating in scheduled programs. 

It’s Happening! Celebrating 50 Years of Public Art in NYC Parks, took place in Central Park on October 21^st. Included among the more than 100 artworks, performances, and workshops was FieldWork. FieldWork is a choreographed performance by artist Nancy Nowacek, a Freshkills Park Field R/D artist, in collaboration with Morgan Hille-Refakis.

Back in June, artist Volker Goetze performed at Freshkills Park as part of Make Music New York for “Inside the Bird Chorus,” a live, free musical celebration with over 1,200 concerts on streets, sidewalks, and parks across the five boroughs.

Artist Mandi Gavois’ solo show of photographs and sculpture at Galleri Thomas Wallner in Simris, Sweden, includes photographs of Freshkills Park. The show’s central panorama photograph of Freshkills is titled “With the ship comes the wreck,” which is also the title of the show.

Contemporary artists have found a new way to recycle discarded objects by transforming them into beautiful artwork. This unconventional technique has proven to be wildly popular and it echoes the Freshkills Park message that trash can be transformed into something beautiful.

Artists are participating in a new art-research project called “Freshkills Park: Field R/D.” Organized by artist/curator Dylan Gauthier and Freshkills Park’s Mariel Villeré, the project will involve independent and collaborative research, site visits and field trips, shared meals and conversations over the course of several months.

Since 2014, photographers have been documenting Freshkills Park’s changing landscape for an ongoing series called Capturing Change. The series aims to generate a community- and artist-driven archive of the site’s transition from landfill to public space. Several photographers have returned multiple times, compelled to explore the park over and over again.

In June 2015, Mayor Bill de Blasio signed legislation requiring the City to produce its first-ever comprehensive cultural plan for all New Yorkers. Now the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs and Hester Street Collaborative are working together to collect information to inform the cultural plan, called CreateNYC.

Mierle Laderman Ukeles first toured Fresh Kills Landfill in 1977. She had just been appointed the New York Department of Sanitation’s first (and only) Artist-in-Residence. At that time, there were landfills in every borough except Manhattan, and Fresh Kills was known as the largest municipal landfill in the world.

This past year marked the fifteen-year anniversary of the Fresh Kills Landfill closure. In March of 2001, the final barge of household garbage arrived at the landfill. Later that year, the City of New York announced an international design competition for the development of a plan for Freshkills Park.

Freshkills Park: Landscape in Motion was on view at the Staten Island Arts Culture Lounge Gallery in the St. George Ferry Terminal from September 22-December 7. This exhibit of winning photographs of Freshkills Park was the capstone to “A Fresh Look,” the landscape photography contest organized with the Staten Island Advance.